Machine Guns in Safehold

Expert snuggler wrote:Yes, "experts study logistics".

I hope someone in the Empire is thinking seriously about diesel supply trucks.

In order to make logistics easier. You are going to create a whole new industry with thousands of parts (which require metal and rubber--if you want to do above wagon pace) to move loads of 5 tons(and that is optimist). With its own logistics requirements. To include people who can fix them.

Safehold, as far as logistics go, has all the stuff needed to ship stuff from London to Chicago or Duluth in multi ton quantities.

Once they get there the logistics support range is measured in Hundreds of miles. Pretty much to Fargo, North Dakota. Heck from London to Butte Montana is in the support range. Fast as the Red Ball Express well no not for the individual load. But comparable to a Liberty ship chugging away at 7 knots across the Atlantic plus the Red Ball Express.

In the meantime the Empire is trying to get mechanical logistics to improved American Civil War standards. Struggling very hard with some success.

Sorry I just don't see the need.

T2M

Henry Brown wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Somewhere (probably on Youtube) I've seen video of an early Maxim firing black powder. It disappears into it's own smokescreen almost immediately

Was this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1qH8Ix3QTA

As far as I can tell, that is Hiram Maxim himself firing it.

It might be. I thought I remembered the camera being less close-up, and the smoke obscuring the gun more; but it's been a long time since I saw it.

thinkstoomuch wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:Yes, "experts study logistics".

I hope someone in the Empire is thinking seriously about diesel supply trucks.

In order to make logistics easier. You are going to create a whole new industry with thousands of parts (which require metal and rubber--if you want to do above wagon pace) to move loads of 5 tons(and that is optimist). With its own logistics requirements. To include people who can fix them.

Safehold, as far as logistics go, has all the stuff needed to ship stuff from London to Chicago or Duluth in multi ton quantities.

Once they get there the logistics support range is measured in Hundreds of miles. Pretty much to Fargo, North Dakota. Heck from London to Butte Montana is in the support range. Fast as the Red Ball Express well no not for the individual load. But comparable to a Liberty ship chugging away at 7 knots across the Atlantic plus the Red Ball Express.

In the meantime the Empire is trying to get mechanical logistics to improved American Civil War standards. Struggling very hard with some success.

Sorry I just don't see the need.

T2M

Actually, light rail/tac rail would probably make more sense at this point than automobiles, yes it would be terrain limited, but closer to the technological limits of Safehold. Rail lines would probably start by paralleling the canals(because they are already cleared and graded), multiplying their utility and allowing heavy winter transport, then branching out from there as possible.

Theemile wrote:Actually, light rail/tac rail would probably make more sense at this point than automobiles, yes it would be terrain limited, but closer to the technological limits of Safehold. Rail lines would probably start by paralleling the canals(because they are already cleared and graded), multiplying their utility and allowing heavy winter transport, then branching out from there as possible.

Railroads eat steel or iron. Not my area of speciality but I'll give it a shot.

It has been a while since I read up on it the Grantville Gazette so all these figures are off the cuff.

Say you use 5 pound rail(for tacrail, SWAG). Full size started ~40 pound. That is 5 pounds to the yard. You need 2 rails (technically not really) so in one mile you need 1,760 pounds of steel/iron. Or roughly 1 ton to the mile. Remember this is off the cuff. Might be off by an order of magnitude or even more. Probably higher.

What was the tonnage of the King Herald VII again? How far will that get me?

I guess you could go with strap rails, just don't ask me to ride it. References in GG21 is strap rail for a full size line was 15 pounds to a yard.

While it is in their technical capability the production side is problematic.


One other thing on trucks, all those wonderful instructions on how to make roads in the Writ. If you go to rubber tires, even hard rubber, Throw them away. 20-30 miles an hour there will be no road in a short time of intense military use.

Of course it could be an odd way to break the Writ now that I think about it.

Have fun,
T2M

Duck6actual wrote:You all make good points about why early machine guns won't/can't work.
But I think you are going about this wrong. First of all what about the naval side? Gattlings or Maxims would be ideal for CIWS rolls and then let's think bigger. What about a black powder variant of a 40mm Bofors or even a hand cranked 25mm Bushmaster? To top it off these rounds are small enough it could be fairly easy to make the sabot rounds. This could be a great deterrent for those screw galleys

Try the 37 mm Hotchkiss rotary cannon ROF 60-70 RPM range 2000 yds

Duck6actual wrote:But I think you are going about this wrong. First of all what about the naval side? Gattlings or Maxims would be ideal for CIWS rolls and then let's think bigger. What about a black powder variant of a 40mm Bofors or even a hand cranked 25mm Bushmaster? To top it off these rounds are small enough it could be fairly easy to make the sabot rounds. This could be a great deterrent for those screw galleys

Why bother with hand-cranked aboard ship?

I mentioned earlier that for naval use, steam driven derivatives of the Gatling or Hotchkiss Rotary Cannon driven by steam or pneumatic motors would be entirely possible and advantageous for the Navy. Either is well within current Charisian technology.

The question is what would be the best option for the Army/Marines. Heavy belt-fed, tripod mounted machine guns don't fit the ICA's demonstrated tactical philosophy of "fire and maneuver." Belt-fed machine guns or gravity-fed Gatling derivatives are un-matched in the "fire" part of that, it's the "Maneuver" part where they fail.

Theemile wrote:

thinkstoomuch wrote:[quote="Expert snuggler"]Yes, "experts study logistics".

I hope someone in the Empire is thinking seriously about diesel supply trucks.

In order to make logistics easier. You are going to create a whole new industry with thousands of parts (which require metal and rubber--if you want to do above wagon pace) to move loads of 5 tons(and that is optimist). With its own logistics requirements. To include people who can fix them.

Safehold, as far as logistics go, has all the stuff needed to ship stuff from London to Chicago or Duluth in multi ton quantities.

Once they get there the logistics support range is measured in Hundreds of miles. Pretty much to Fargo, North Dakota. Heck from London to Butte Montana is in the support range. Fast as the Red Ball Express well no not for the individual load. But comparable to a Liberty ship chugging away at 7 knots across the Atlantic plus the Red Ball Express.

In the meantime the Empire is trying to get mechanical logistics to improved American Civil War standards. Struggling very hard with some success.

Sorry I just don't see the need.

T2M

Actually, light rail/tac rail would probably make more sense at this point than automobiles, yes it would be terrain limited, but closer to the technological limits of Safehold. Rail lines would probably start by paralleling the canals(because they are already cleared and graded), multiplying their utility and allowing heavy winter transport, then branching out from there as possible.[/quote]
Locks.

The problem with using the canal haul road is locks.

Not insurmountable but they can complicate the issue.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Steel is not the problem in building a rail road. It is the ROAD, the rail sits on that is the problem. Enormous amounts of dirt/rock must be moved for every mile of RR. The Steel required is small peanuts compared to the machinery and tools needed to move the actual dirt/rock. Unless you go to the million man slave labor pool moving rock and breaking rock by hand...

Now, if the ground is very hard and rocky, one can just "throw" temp rail down. The super thin gauge rail used in mines is an example. Of course they have solid rock and lots of shattered rock to work with.

evilauthor wrote:

enutt wrote:This has been bothering me for the last two books. With the advent of cartridge-based munitions and breach loading and repeating rifles, why haven't the Charisians developed the first iterations of machine guns?

It's been discussed elsewhere, but here's a quick rundown:

1) Logistics - It's been stated that cartridge production for existing firearms is barely keeping up with demand even when Charis had yet to fight any major battles with single shot and bolt action rifles yet. There's no way cartridge production would be able to continuously supply generally deployed full auto weapons.

2) Doctrine - There's been no need for full auto weapons yet and no one outside the Inner Circle has even conceived of it yet. Even those inside the Inner Circle are still thinking in terms of individually aimed shots. And the reason they think that is...

3) They aren't needed - Historically and in Safehold, the biggest killer of massed infantry HASN'T been fully automatic weapons. It's been artillery. And Charis and her allies are lavishly equipped with artillery and mortars firing explosive shells which has been doing most of the killing and breaking of enemy held positions.

I'm not sure I agree with all your points, but I've seen the logistics discussion previously, and it does have some merit based upon the details in the book. What doesn't make sense is why ammo production is centered in Old Charis. Ideally, it should be moved, at least in part, to Siddarmark as this would shorten the supply line as well as provide an increase in manufacturing capacity. Arguably, foundries in Siddarmark could get repurposed to ammunition production faster than to rifle or artillery production as the materials, equipment, and processes are easier.

Point 2 is possibly valid, however the Inner Circle has access to Terran archives that would suggest the use of automatic weapons. Merlin certainly knows the historically important role that crew-served automatic weaponry has played in every war since the 1880's.

Point 3 may be accurate under certain conditions, but artillery loses effectiveness in the point-defense role, in close terrain (i.e. the Kyplynger Forest, cities), or when weather conditions do not permit spotting. It also lacks mobility when on the advance (with the notable exception of the infantry "angle guns" aka mortars being used by the ICA. In fact, it's effectiveness to date has been either on the defense (Thesmar, Sylman Gap) or against fixed enemy emplacements when on the attack, and always against massed infantry. Once the ICA faces the MHOGAA in open terrain using the new rifles and adopting the dispersed infantry doctrine, artillery is going to be far less effective.

Duck6actual wrote:You all make good points about why early machine guns won't/can't work.
But I think you are going about this wrong. First of all what about the naval side? Gattlings or Maxims would be ideal for CIWS rolls and then let's think bigger. What about a black powder variant of a 40mm Bofors or even a hand cranked 25mm Bushmaster? To top it off these rounds are small enough it could be fairly easy to make the sabot rounds. This could be a great deterrent for those screw galleys

Duck, I like your point about the naval utility of the machine gun, especially in light of the success the Earl of Thirsk has with the armored screw galleys in the latest book. There is also a role for them in point defense on the river and coastal ironclads.